Thanks for visiting PHT on a day normally reserved for finding your car keys and dignity. Because you’ve all been such good sports, we’re going to do you a solid and kick the year off right…by being positive.

Yes, positive.

Look, we know the NHL lockout’s been a drag. (Also acceptable: “sad” or “wholly unnecessary.”) But that doesn’t mean we can’t find the bright side — y’know, the parts of the work stoppage that make you realize hey, some good things have come out of the last 108 days.

Granted, not many good things. But some.

Okay, six. There have been exactly six good things.

And here they are.

Way more time to follow other sports

Like the NBA. We can’t remember the last time we got to watch professional hoops on a regular basis. Did you know the SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City? Seattle basketball fans will really miss Tom Chambers.

We’ve also been enjoying college football’s many, many bowl games. Central Florida’s victory over Ball State in the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl was very impressive. We thought that game would be closer, but we guess Knights quarterback Blake Bortles had other plans!

Google Translate and its wacky Google translations

One trick to being really good hockey journalist guys: Go straight to the source (or so we’re told.)

So, rather than wait for a proper translation of a European team announcing its big NHL signing, the trick is to copy text off the team website and plug it into Google Translate.

After all, any old website can tell you Ales Hemsky signed in the Czech Extraliga. But only Google Translate will tell you in such an enjoyable way, like “Hemsky agree yes to Pardubice consummate upon contract. On Tuesday join. Successful much oil man has been, though often injury.”

That guy Guy Serota

When federal mediators entered labor negotiations, a crack staff was assigned to the case. That included one Guy Serota, who was quickly unassigned due to a rather sketchy personal Twitter account.

Featuring bad jokes, foul language, an infatuation with Sarah Silverman and links to videos of himself (essentially ruining his “I WAS HACKED!” defense), Serota’s account didn’t exactly undermine the mediation process — let’s face it, nobody figured it would work in the first place — but it did lead to a bunch of hockey writers writing about a man and his “Ass Mode” shirt.

“The Italian second division? That exists?”

How else besides the lockout would we have learned about all the wild and crazy places guys can play hockey professionally? For example, did you know Denmark’s top professional league, the AL-Bank Ligaen, is sponsored by Dong Energy? We do.

Learning the difference between “decertification” and “disclaimer of interest”

It’s weird, we were always under the impression they were the same thing, but it turns out they aren’t. Yes, both are ways to dissolve a union; however, decertification takes longer and is a more formal process than a disclaimer of interest. Cool, right?

It’s also been interesting to read about antitrust law as it pertains to professional sports. We never thought we’d get that opportunity when we became sports writers. We thought we’d have to write about sports all the time.

So that’s our list of six good things about the lockout. (Full disclosure: we tried to think of 10 but fell four short.)

Many thanks to all our readers for continuing to visit PHT. Here’s to a fantastic 2013. Go Knights!